


You've Got Kudos!

by rabidchild67



Category: White Collar
Genre: Crack, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Pre-Threesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-09
Updated: 2013-08-09
Packaged: 2017-12-22 23:33:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/919337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rabidchild67/pseuds/rabidchild67
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Moz has a dirty little secret – he writes RPF about his friends. But what happens when it starts coming true?</p>
            </blockquote>





	You've Got Kudos!

_You’ve got kudos!_ the email informed him, and Moz grumbled, “God forbid someone should leave an actual _comment._ ” Nevertheless, he opened it up to see how many people had read his stories in the last 24 hours.

“ _4 guests have left kudos on **I Own You for Four Years**_ ” the email told him, and he smiled a secret smile – one of the first stories he published was still his most popular. He supposed he knew the reason – lots of people loved BDSM, more now that **Fifty Shades of Grey** was so popular – and that story had established him in certain avid reading circles. But those types of stories, though he loved them, were more difficult to write, even if he acknowledged that he was very good at it. No, his true love was writing hurt/comfort.

He deleted the notification from his email and got up to make himself some tea, then went to look through his mail while the kettle boiled. 

Most of Moz’s acquaintances would probably fall over to realize he actually participated in society and received something as ordinary and prosaic as mail. But there was really no avoiding it, and besides, he had an addiction to EBay. In fact, today he received a package from one of the auctions he’d won, and purposely left the small box to be opened last. 

The kettle whistled and he poured his tea, picking up the mug and the unopened package and returning to his desk on the other side of Monday, which was his favorite spot for writing by far. He carefully cut through the packing tape on the box with an antique letter opener he’d just acquired the week before, trying to recall which of the items he’d bought this one might be. When he peered inside and saw the hint of burnished metal through the clear bubble wrap, his heart thrilled a little bit – it was the brass oil lamp he’d fought so damn hard to win, delivered to him at last.

He pulled the small lamp from the box and unwound the bubble wrap from around it, then settled it on his desk to peruse it properly in the midday sunshine, and… was slightly disappointed. Perhaps it was the photography on the seller’s page that had made it look so much better, but the thing just looked… ordinary. It was tarnished and dull and not at all what he’d expected.

“Oh well, what’s another hundred and fifty bucks down the tubes?” he said with a sigh and set the thing aside. He was just about to return to working on his Poly Big Bang – oh, how he loved the paternal undertones in his latest Kirk/Spock/Pike masterpiece – when his phone buzzed in his pocket.

“He recognized the number immediately. “Good afternoon, mon frère,” he greeted Neal cheerfully.

“Hey, Boz,” his friend said from the other end.

“You do not sound well,” Moz told his friend.

“I dough, I dough. Beder’s sending me hobe for the day. Bud id’s jusd a code.”

“I dunno, Neal,” Moz said, resting the phone against his shoulder as he picked up his new oil lamp and turned in his chair, hoping to spot something of the beauty he’d seen in its photograph by looking at it in the beam of sunlight that now shone down through the skylights. “As much as I’d hate to agree with the Suit, he’s right – you should get some rest.”

“You’re both a couble of worrywards,” Neal grumbled unhappily, but judging from the traffic sounds Moz was hearing, he was on his way home. 

“Drink lots of liquids, and rest,” Moz instructed, distracted. The way the light was shining over his lamp, he could see faint etchings and whorls in the thing’s surface in what looked like Classical Arabic. 

“Ogay.”

“Call me if you need anything.” Moz rang off, already distracted by the possibilities in his little lamp. He rubbed it with a dust cloth that lay on his desk and saw some of the writing begin to become clearer. “Fascinating,” he said, and began to rub harder. The going was slow – the tarnish on this thing was stubborn, and he had no cleaner, though he supposed he could go out and buy some – so as he worked, his thoughts strayed to Neal and his cold. 

_Huh… sucks having a cold,_ he thought. _You know how these things can get out of hand if ignored._

Moz stopped his polishing and felt his cheeks color – he _had to stop_ plotting RPF featuring his friends, he just had to. It was wrong in every way possible. Wrong and insulting to his relationships with these people to imagine horrible things happening to them, or to write graphic sex scenes between them. Or to publish said scenes under the _nom de plume_ DonTHaversham. For which he had over five thousand subscribers. And that was before he started using Tumblr.

“Stop it,” he said aloud, as if that would work. “Stick with fandom. You like fandom.” But he also liked imagining adventures and drama with his friends in them, too. His so-called “original” stories featuring conman “Niles McCaffrey,” his FBI handler “Pete Berg,” and Pete’s lovely wife “Beth” were very popular, and he was constantly getting really good feedback on them. Plus, he thought as he rubbed the brass lamp even harder, it had been a long time since he’d published a good, old-fashioned “sickfic.”

Setting the lamp aside, he fired up a new Word document on his laptop and began typing.

\----

_Beth walked into their bedroom with a lunch tray that she set down on the dresser, turned and regarded her men with a fond smile. Pete sat with his back against the headboard, Niles cradled against his chest. They had both fallen asleep, Pete with his fingers still buried in Niles’ thick, wavy hair, Niles with his arms around Pete as if he was his lifeline._

_He probably felt that way too, Beth realized. After the harrowing 24-hours they’d just seen, with Niles’ fevered hallucinations, he probably still felt some residual fear of abandonment. And she knew Pete – big, steady-as-a-rock Pete – secretly loved to feel needed on occasion by their wild-child lover._

_She picked up the tray and tiptoed from the room – they could eat later._

Moz hit the “save” button and went back over his newest story. It’d taken him the better part of two days to plot it out and finish it. He’d give it one more read-through before posting – he always rewrote endings once he’d taken the time to read it all at one sitting, and this story would be no different. He got up to stretch first, though, and noticed that there was a text on his phone he’d somehow missed earlier in the day.

It was from Neal: _Sorry I’ve been MIA_ he said, _been really sick._

Concerned – as well as appalled with himself for not having noticed his friend’s absence while he had spent the last two days writing thinly-veiled RPF about him, Moz texted back, _Just got this – anything I can do?_

_Nah, Peter and Elizabeth brought me soup and stuff._

_OK. See you soon,_ Moz wrote back.

\----

_”Look, I’m telling you I’m in love with you, Niles,” Pete finally said, forcing himself to look into his best friend’s eyes. “And I can’t let another day go by that you don’t know how I feel. Not after what almost happened today, not after –“ Pete’s voice broke, “not after you could have been killed!”_

_“Pete – “_

_“I’m sorry if that freaks you out, and I’m sorry if you didn’t expect it or want it. I’m sorry for a lot of things. But what I am **not** sorry for is how I feel.”_

_“Pete, please stop talking,” Niles said, and it was his turn to not be able to meet the other’s eyes. He took a deep breath and held it a moment before continuing, “I’m not going to pretend I don’t have similar feelings, but you have a wife who is also my friend, and I would die before I would ever hurt her. I know you think you love me, but this can never happen. It’s… I am just not that guy.”_

_“But don’t you see, Niles? Beth’s the one who made me realize my feelings for you – she saw how I look at you, what you mean to me. And she’s on board.”_

_“Such lies are beneath you, Pete.”_

_“Have I ever lied to you?”_

_Niles raised an eyebrow._

_“Have I ever lied to you about anything this important?”_

_“When you think you’re protecting me? All the damn time. But I’ll allow that you are an honorable man, and this is way too serious a subject.”_

_“Beth wants you too.”_

_Niles blinked up at Pete, an incredulous look on his face. “How’s that supposed to work?”_

_“What, do you think I know? We’re all in uncharted territory here, Niles. But I think we owe it to ourselves to see if we can make it work, don’t you?”_

_Niles’ answer was a kiss._

Moz blinked back a bit of a tear as he wrote – he loved working himself up for these emotional scenes, and he wished he had time for more of it, but he had already written the sexy three-way sex scene that would end the story the day before, and he wanted to publish it before he had to go and meet Neal.

\----

Later that afternoon, Moz was sitting at Neal's table partaking of a particularly lovely domestic sparkling wine and feverishly hitting the refresh button on his phone’s email waiting for comments on his latest story when Neal came stumbling into his own apartment looking rumpled.

“You’re here,” Neal said, straightening up. “Of course you’re here. Am I that late?”

“Not at all, mon frère, you are just in time to enjoy this particularly fine blend before it is all gone.” Moz poured Neal a measure into another wineglass and held it out for him.

Neal crossed the room and came to get it, an exasperated look on his face. “You know I was saving that bottle don’t you?”

Moz ignored him, eying his face; there was something different about him, something lighter, happier – something he recognized. “You got laid last night.”

Neal turned beet red. 

“Don’t even try to deny it. But I thought you said you were having dinner at Chez Burke – _oh my God_!”

Neal held his hands up. “Before you freak out, I just need you to know –“

“It sure took you long enough,” Moz said, surprising himself.

“What?!”

“What? I’ve seen the way you look at Peter. And the way he looks at you. I take it Elizabeth was on board for this? How’s that work, anyhow?”

“I think you know how that works, and what’s wrong with you anyway?”

“What do you mean? Can’t I want my friend to have a stabilizing relationship in his life?”

“Historically? No. You’re the biggest cock-block in the tri-state area.”

Moz scowled. “I’ve turned into a romantic, so sue me.”

“I would if I thought you had any money. Now, let me just go get a shower while you figure out where you’re taking me to brunch.”

“Hey – it’s your turn to buy!” Moz squeaked, but he was happy to, if only to celebrate his OT3 coming true.

\----

_”Niles!” Pete hissed, turning his body so that Peterman and his gang of thugs couldn’t see the two of them speaking – or the fear in his own eyes._

_“Do it, **Mark,** ” Niles said, addressing Pete by his alter ego’s cover name. “If you don’t, you’ll blow both our covers.”_

_“Come on, Mark – don’t tell me you don’t have the stomach for it?” Peterman sneered from behind him. “He knows something and there’s only one way to get him to talk.”_

_Pete turned back to his lover, his face a mask of fear and indecision. “There must be another way, Niles!” he whispered urgently. “I can’t, I won’t hurt you.”_

_And for just a moment, Niles looked into Pete’s eyes with all the trust and love that had ever gone spoken or unspoken between them and said softly, “You can’t hurt me.”_

_Pete made sure to hit him where it wouldn’t show._

\----

Moz hit “Post” on his story then slammed his laptop lid closed with the sense of satisfaction that he always felt when he’d published a story. This one had turned into a bit of an epic – a prompt from a kink meme had just spurred his imagination so thoroughly, and he had barely removed his nose from his computer for the last three days. 

He shoved his laptop into his messenger bag and stood up from the small table he’d been occupying at Starbucks and, as he stepped outside, was more than slightly surprised that the sun was shining cheerfully. Shrugging, he decided to run over to Neal's to see what his friend was up to – he thought it was about time that the little sting he and the Suit were working on must be over. Maybe he could con Neal into taking him to dinner.

When he arrived, it was Peter who answered Neal's door. This shouldn’t have surprised Moz necessarily – they were in a relationship now, and these things happened – but it was the mood in the room that triggered his Spidey senses almost immediately.

“Bon jour, mes amis,” he said into the tense silence anyway, looking from one man to the other. Neal was seated on the couch – more like leaning against the end of it, really – his body weirdly stiff. Peter stood off to the side with his hands in front of him, as if waiting to catch something. He too was tense, and Moz noticed abrasions on the knuckles of his right hand. “Did I interrupt –?”

Looking like he’d been caught at something, Peter lowered his hands and said quickly, “No.”

“Nothing,” Neal said almost simultaneously. He sat forward, clearly intending to stand up, only to suck in his breath and clutch at his ribs as if injured. Peter took two steps forward, his hands out, intending to help. As the FBI agent touched him, Neal flinched away almost violently, and Peter stood back, an agonized expression on his face. 

“You’re hurt – what happened?” Moz asked. 

Peter opened his mouth as if to answer, and Neal cut him off. “Took a spill at the office.” He again attempted to get to his feet and, though he was clearly in need of assistance, succeeded this time. 

“That’s some spill. What the hell, Suit – don’t you guys have medical insurance?”

Peter scowled at him, but clearly his anger was not with Moz. “Yes,” he said pointedly, “it’s there when people actually _use it._ ” 

Neal waved his hand at him and moved slowly over to the door that led to his bathroom, Peter following behind -- the ultimate low-speed chase. He would have followed Neal, Moz was certain, but Neal waved him off and shuffled down the hallway unassisted.

Peter turned back around and strode angrily over to Neal's table, grabbing up his cell phone and making a big show of checking messages. It was clear he was giving himself something to do rather than follow Neal.

“Seriously, Peter, what happened?” Moz asked him. “Aren’t you supposed to be keeping an eye out for him? He’s your responsibility in more ways than one.” Moz regretted laying it on so thick, but Neal getting hurt on the job was serious.

“Don’t you think I know what I’m responsible for, Moz?” Peter practically spat, and if Moz wasn’t mistaken, there were tears in his eyes.

\----

_”Niles. Please,” Pete’s voice was urgent, plaintive, **begging,** but his lover was unresponsive, and there was just so much blood._

_Pete pressed the towel he’d grabbed from the bathroom down into the bullet wound, pushed on it as hard as he dared, desperate to staunch the bleeding, but it was not enough. Whatever damage the bullet had done was extensive._

_There was so much blood._

_“Medics are five minutes out, boss,” Deanna said, standing over them with her cell phone to her ear._

_“He may not have five minutes, Dee,” Pete moaned, and pressed the towel down harder. He thought he heard something crack._

_When they finally did come, the EMTs had to pull Pete physically off of Niles. He stood and watched them work, watched them strap on an oxygen mask, watched as they had to use the defibrillator on Niles when he went into cardiac arrest. He watched as they ran an IV and shouted things at each other. He watched as they loaded him onto a stretcher and bundled him into the ambulance. He watched them take Niles away._

_If only he’d been watching when Peterman had pulled his gun._

\----

Moz jumped when his cell phone rang and picked it up from the table. IT was the third call from the same number he didn’t recognize, so he let it go to voice mail. He hardly cared who was trying to get in contact with him – he’d been trying to perfect this scene for days now and it just wasn’t quite right. As he was about to put his phone down, he took note of the time – he was late for a lunch date with June. Pocketing the phone and packing his laptop into his messenger bag, he ran out the door.

\----

_Pete sat with his head in his hands, thinking that the surgical scrubs the hospital had provided could have done with a bit of fabric softener – they were too scratchy against his skin. Beth sat beside him, rubbing between his shoulders, and he thought that if she’d press just a little bit harder and it might actually do him some good. Then he realized how petty and stupid all of those thoughts were._

_Because Niles was dying._

_He’d been through two surgeries already, but the doctors said there was nothing else they could do. It was only a matter of time. He and Beth were just waiting for the nurse who would take them back to Niles’ room._

_Suddenly, she was there – the angel of death in pink surgical scrubs. Halfway down the hall, Beth couldn’t make it, said she couldn’t see him like that, told Pete to go on ahead. So he did._

_Then Pete was standing beside Niles in his hospital bed, and he looked so pale and just… small… lying there. Pete stood with his back to the door, hip leaning against the bed and stared down at Niles. He took his hand – you were supposed to do that for people who were dying, right? Could they feel it?_

_Pete held Niles’ hand to his chest as if it was a talisman, as if the fact it was still warm hadn’t already broken him. “Oh, Niles,” he said. “You’re always the one with the clever things to say, and Beth is always the one with the right things to say. Me, I’m just… likely to say something stupid. So, I think for once I’ll just say what I know to be true. I love you. I’ve loved you for so long, even before I knew it, I think. You are the best thing that’s happened to me since I married Beth. Please_

\----

“Ah, there you are, darling,” June said cheerfully as she joined Moz on her patio. 

He jumped at the interruption – he’d been so caught up in his writing. 

“Is something wrong?” June asked. “You look upset.”

“What? No, it’s nothing – something I’m, uh, reading.” Moz dashed a tear out of his eye self-consciously. It wasn’t unusual for what he was writing to affect his emotions, and it wasn’t every day he decided to kill off his primary character in a story.

Sure, he’d written deathfics before, but they were always very much removed from the emotional impact a true death would have on those left behind. He’d done the immediate aftermath, he’d done the circumstances leading up to it, but he’d never spilled much ink on the fallout, and he was kind of excited by the prospect. He thought he had a really good angle, and he would enjoy the emotional journey he intended to put his character “Pete” through as he recovered from the trauma and got on with his life. In a way, he regretted killing off “Niles,” but this was his ‘verse to play with, and he could always bring him back later.

Moz closed his laptop and, when he went to put it away in his messenger bag, realized there was something in the way. He pulled out the small oil lamp he’d bought months before – is _that_ where the thing had gotten to? He had meant to have it appraised and forgotten it was in there. He set it on the table as he coiled up his power cord.

“Why Moz, wherever did you get that?” June said, indicating the lamp.

“That thing? EBay. You like it?”

June actually took a step back. “No, I wouldn’t go near that thing with a ten-foot pole. And neither should you.”

“What? Why?”

“It’s a djinn’s lamp, didn’t you know?”

“No!”

She gave him an indulgent and wholly-deserved condescending look. “Mozzie, really,” she admonished. She bent over to peer more closely at the thing. “It’s not very tarnished – you didn’t polish it and make a wish, did you?” 

“Well, I polished it, but I think if a genie appeared before me I’d have noticed, June.”

“Mozzie, dear, they don’t always have a djinn inside. You really need to be more careful.”

“I swear I made no wishes,” he replied.

“Not even wishful thinking?”

“June, you know I am a pragmatist!” he insisted, but then one of the maids interrupted, whispering something into June’s ear. 

June made a kind of strangled, shocked noise, and grasped onto the young woman’s sleeve. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“June, what is it?” Moz asked.

When she looked at him, her eyes were already tearing up. “Neal’s been shot.”

\----

Moz drove, and he and June found them all clustered in a waiting room on the surgical floor at Lennox Hill Hospital – Elizabeth, seated and looking stricken, with Diana, Jones, and even the old guy, Hughes, standing around her supportively.

“Oh, Mozzie!” Elizabeth said when she spotted him. She stood and threw herself into his arms, trembling and crying. 

Moz held her close, and looked at Diana, a question in his eyes. She only shook her head.

“I have to see him,” Moz said.

\----

Neal was in the surgical care ward. Apparently, it had all happened the night before. There had already been two surgeries. The prognosis was not good. Moz ignored the eerie similarities between what was unfolding in the lives of his friends and the story he had been writing the last two days as he allowed the nurse to lead him to Neal’s bedside.

Peter was with Neal when Moz arrived; he had his back to Moz, and was speaking softly to Neal, so that he didn’t hear or see Moz arrive. His words chilled Moz to the bone. 

“You’re the one with the clever things to say, Neal,” Peter said, his voice thick with emotion. “And El’s the one who says all the _right things_.” He paused, sighing. It was clearly hard for him to speak. “But you know me – I’m more likely to say something stupid. So, I think for once I’ll just say what I feel, if that’s all right.”

Another pause. “God, Neal, I love you. I’ve loved you for so long! You are the best thing that’s happened to me since I met El.” He took a deep breath, and when he spoke again, he was sobbing. “Please don’t die! Please don’t leave me! Please, Neal, please.”

Moz fled the hospital.

\----

Cross-town traffic was at a standstill, so Moz was forced to abandon the car and walk to June’s instead. It was just as well – he was on the verge of going insane as it was and being cooped up inside a car was doing nothing to alleviate any of it.

This was his fault – all of it. Neal was dying because he hadn’t recognized the lamp for what it was, and his stories were nothing more than fantasy and wish-fulfillment now brought horrifyingly to life. As he walked, he was reminded of the stories he’d written the last several weeks – Neal at the wrong end of a gun, being threatened; Peter forced to beat Neal in order to maintain his cover; Neal falling into a relationship with the Burkes – well, that one wasn’t so bad, was it? But it was all because of him!

He was the lowest of the low, to use his friends’ lives for his own entertainment. And to publish them! He was beyond mortified, and now – now his best friend was dying. 

He had to make it right.

\----

_”N-Niles?” Pete said, stirring awake as the hand he held clutched in his own twitched._

_“Residual neurological impulses could occur,” the doctor had warned._

_Pete didn’t want to get his hopes up, but he still squeezed the cold hand in his harder, sitting up in the chair he’d been occupying for hours – waiting for the inevitable while hoping desperately it would never happen. “Niles?” he said, grasping the hand in both of his now, rubbing the back of it, warming it up, kissing it._

_It took forever, but when it happened, Pete knew it was neither his imagination nor any kind of neurological response – this time there was no doubt that when Niles’ hand moved, he was squeezing Pete’s back!_

\----

Moz slept with his head on his arms, sitting in front of his laptop. He had written all through the night, changing the course of his story, writing a long recovery and the dedication shown by Niles’ lovers as he got through his difficult recovery. 

His phone rang, startling him awake. When he looked at it, he recognized the number that had been calling him the day before and answered it before it had a chance to ring again.

“Mozzie? It’s Agent Berrigan.” She sounded tired, her voice scratchy and low. Moz’s heart sank. “Where the hell did you go?”

“How is he?” Moz asked, ignoring her.

She took a quavering breath. “Docs say he’ll make it. He’s not out of the woods entirely, but he’s awake, and alert, and it’s a good sign. They’re saying it’s some kind of miracle.”

“More like a curse,” Moz muttered.

“What?”

“I’ll bring breakfast!” Moz said joyfully and ran from the apartment, leaving his laptop open on the table behind him.

\----

**One Year Later**

Moz’s phone chimed pleasantly, indicating that he’d received a new email. He stopped what he was doing immediately – since helping Neal move in with the Burkes was not exactly his reason for living – and took a break to check his mail. He sat at the bottom of the third floor staircase and pulled out his phone.

_User polywannacracker has sent you a message_ his email informed him. 

Moz paused; while it had been a while since he’d published anything, he still kept his online presence out there so that his readers could access his work. He got the occasional comment that he was sure to respond to, but it had been nearly a year since he’d written anything. What had happened with Neal had frankly scared the hell out of him, and there was no way Moz was going to jeopardize his friend’s safety again by writing about him. The djinn’s lamp had been destroyed – he’d consulted with three imams to help him with the ritual – and he was reasonably certain Neal, Peter and all their friends were safe. Still, he wasn’t taking any chances.

_Hi Don!_ the PM said, _hope you don’t mind my reaching out to you directly. We sure do miss you out here on the Interwebs – I hope you are doing well!_

_I wanted to let you know that a bunch of us McBergfrey fans have really missed your stories online. I’m not sure if you’ve abandoned your ‘verse, or are just taking a break or what, but we missed it so much that we’ve created our own Community! Congratulations – you have your own fandom! Come check it out: **McCaffrey-Berg**._

_Many of your old fans are participating, and we’ve been writing our own fanfic of your creation – hope you don’t mind! This week, we’re the Comm off with an MPREG Commentfic ‘Fest, so if you have a chance, why don’t you check it out?_

Moz turned white and froze, looking down at the message with disbelief. Behind him, he heard a bit of fuss as Elizabeth and Neal emerged from the second floor bathroom.

“Just go on and lie down, sweetie,” she was telling Neal, “We’ll finish up out here.” He smiled wanly and trudged into the master bedroom.

“What’s going on? Is Neal not feeling well?”

“Yeah,” El said, pouting on his behalf as she watched Neal slide under the covers in their King-sized bed. “He’s caught some bug – been puking every morning for the last week. I think we need to take him to the doctor…”

\----

Thank you for your time.


End file.
